The newest crop of cameras from Canon and Nikon has really made choosing a new full-frame DSLR quite interesting. When first announced it looked like the 5D Mark III would be a slam dunk for Canon while the D800, with its whopping 36 megapixels, would only appeal to a niche market. With 50% more, and hence smaller, pixels the D800 looked as though it would have poor low light performance. Canon chose to essentially forgo an increase in pixel count and promises two stops better low light performance versus the 5D Mark II. To me, this means not only increasing the top end of the native ISO range from 6400 to 25600, but also that ISO 1600 on a 5DIII should have about the same amount of noise as ISO 400 on a 5DII, for example. With this in mind in addition to the vastly improved autofocus system and high bit rate ALL-I video recording with reduced moiré the Canon 5D Mark III is the clear champion...on paper.
Surprisingly for two primarily still cameras, video samples were really the first thing to come out of them for analysis on the web. Discussing which camera has the best video capabilities is moot since, in my opinion they both flat out suck. OK, so they're not that bad, but neither raises the bar for DSLR video and neither comes close to a hacked Panasonic GH2, the reigning king of DSLR video. Both cameras yield quite soft video and just do not capture the detail that a GH2 can. When I first saw Intra (ALL-I) video on the GH2, I was wowed. I expected similar things from the 5DIII ALL-I mode, but I am quite disappointed after seeing samples. The D800 features clean HDMI output (only 1080i60 for some reason), but after seeing some HDMI versus internal recording comparisons for it, I feel it does very little to increase the quality. If I had to choose I would say the D800, despite some moiré issues, has a slight edge over the 5DIII in the video department, with both only minority improving upon the performance of a 5D Mark II. Unless having video and still capabilities in one camera is a must, I would forget about either camera's video mode, choose based solely on still capabilities, and pick up a GH2 with a couple decent lenses all for less than the cost of another high end lens for the 5D3 or D800.
Although the D800 was announced first, 5DIII's are making their ways to consumers first and thus have allowed for more in-depth reviews. So far the 5DIII has received stellar reviews with regard to still photography. It's new 61-point autofocus, the same found on the flagship 1DX, has been praised as being extremely quick and accurate, even in very low light. Its low light capabilities have been lauded, though in one ISO comparison test from cameralabs.com versus the 5D Mark II, I do not see two stops of improvement, albeit a comparison of JPEGs instead of RAW. There is maybe one stop of improvement at best. I realize it is just one test, but at ISO 3200 the 5DIII is less noisy than the 5DII at 3200, but 5DIII is definitely more noisy at ISO 6400 than the 5DII at 3200. At 12800, the 5DIII is much, much more noisy than the 5DII at 3200. From this test I would give the 5DIII as about 2/3 of a stop better than the 5DII. The addition of two stops at the top of the native ISO range also seems pointless to me. Shooting in such low light is more of a novelty and I doubt many people want to buy a $3500 camera to get results that look like they were shot on an iPhone (very low light or not). When scaled down, it appears that noise begins to become apparent at around ISO 3200. I would much like to see this same comparison with images captured in RAW. All in all, the 5D Mark III real advantages over the 5D Mark II are just improved autofocus and about a stop of low light performance.
With these improvements on the already impressive 5D Mark II, it seemed as though the D800 had its work cut out for it. The majority of the Nikon community had been bemoaning the vast increase in pixels since rumors pegged the D800 at 36 MP. It seemed that loss of low light sensitivity in order to gain more massive file sizes (around 50 MB RAW files) and increased detail that would be lost at most normal viewing/print sizes. Not many reviews of the D800 have surfaced yet, but the sensor test by DxOMark has rated the D800's as the best sensor they have ever tested. It's color reproduction rivals medium format studio cameras, it has the best dynamic range of any sensor tested, and ranks third in low light performance only slightly behind the new flagship D4 and the D3s, and almost one stop better than the 5D Mark II.
I'm very excited to see some head to head 5DIII versus D800 comparisons. Based on the DxOMark test it seems like the D800 could be the dark horse here. Unless the 5DIII blows the D800 out of the water in low light performance (which I doubt) the D800 may actually produce cleaner images at the same ISO considering there is extra leeway in downscaling the image to mask noise due to the difference in pixel count. If the autofocus can compete with Canon and with its slight edge in the video department the D800 may end up being the clear champion, with a price tag $500 below that of the 5D Mark III.
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